DUCKS, GEESE, ETC. 
71 
fowl today, though still the envy of the eastern sportsman, is sadly reduced. 
The causes of this are various, some unavoidable, though others may be 
controlled. Contrary to a very general impression, the great breeding 
stronghold of wild water-fowl is not a great, vague, far north, but on the 
lakes and sloughs of our prairies in the midst of what is now settled culti- 
vation. We cannot expect that vast acreages can be brought under 
cultivation without some reduction of wild life, nor that the temptation of 
an easy food supply right at the door could always be resisted by the early 
settlers when meat was scarce, and game laws, if any, difficult of enforce- 
ment. The draining of sloughs and marshes has also progressively restricted 
the breeding and feeding area of many of these birds — a further word of 
caution in this direction is given under the heading of Franklin’s Gull, 
page 229. 
Even on grounds suitable only for grazing, the new conditions have 
seriously affected the breeding of various species. Cattle crop close 
around the margins of sloughs, and often the nests that escape the trampling 
of feeding herds are exposed to the eyes of natural enemies. Haying, when 
extended close to pools, although carried on too late in the season to disturb 
the current nestings, destroys the cover for early use next season. Leaving 
a belt of growth about the ponds is only a partial amelioration as it crowds 
the nesting life into narrow belts, conspicuous in the mown meadows 
and tilled fields, and makes an easy hunting ground for predacious crow, 
fox, coyote, cat, or dog. Among the natural enemies, undoubtedly the 
crow ranks high. Accounts indicate that these birds of ill repute have 
increased enormously since the first settlement of the country, and experi- 
ence shows that under present conditions they work havoc with the eggs 
and young of all kinds of nesting birds. Of this, more will be said under 
crow, page 309. 
But all these natural or indirectly human causes of the decrease of 
our ducks are probably unimportant in comparison with the direct effect 
of man in his spring shooting, wanton over-shooting, market-hunting, and 
general wasteful practices. Spring shooting is particularly pernicious as 
it takes the best of the breeding stock — -the strongest and hardiest birds 
that have survived the dangers of a double migration, the severity of 
winter conditions, and are just ready to increase and multiply. To kill 
these birds is like drawing on the principal instead of the interest for current 
expenses. Previous to the conclusion of the Migratory Birds Convention 
Act with the United States each province and state had its own inde- 
pendent game laws. Some legal seasons were long, some were short, but 
on the average each was set to get the maximum toll from the passing 
flocks. In many cases the birds were never out of hearing of the guns that 
spread destruction among them from the time the season opened in the 
autumn on our prairies until the following breeding season. Our open 
seasons may have been but a scant two months, but many of the birds 
owing to their moving from one jurisdiction to another in their migratory 
flights suffered eight months or more of continuous lawful shooting. As 
long as each province or state through which the birds passed in their great 
annual journeys made its own game laws, with only the advantage of its 
own constituents in view, the general good was certain to suffer. The 
tendency of each community to shoot as long as there was anything to shoot 
and to make certain that each got as much as its neighbour, could be cor- 
rected only by a central control that had power to adjudicate between 
